Posted by chuck on July 22, 2011
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STOP THE PRESSES!
Well, that was dramatic. My apologies for the additional post and the drama, but unfortunately we’re unable to edit our posts once they’re published, and I left out something important.
The El Presidente, a classic cocktail of Cuban origin from the era we discussed during David Wondrich and Jeff Berry’s Around the World via (Brass) Rail seminar, is one of my all-time favorites.
My preferred version is to use 1-1/2 ounces of an aged rum, 3/4 ounce of dry vermouth, 1/4 ounce of orange curaçao and about half a bar spoon of grenadine. Other than being a bit less sweet than the typical version with less curaçao, this is pretty standard.
David Wondrich opined that this cocktail isn’t one of his favorites — he finds that when it’s well-done it’s only “okay,” and otherwise it’s “kind of ehh.” His recent researches have revealed that this isn’t quite the way it was originally made in Havana bars of the 1920s and 1930s; we make it the way we make it today because of lack of availability of a key ingredient.
Dry vermouth has been substituted all along, but Dave’s research revealed that the original ingredient, unavailable in the U.S. until recently, was a semi-sweet Vermouth de Chambéry, what we’d know today as Dolin Blanc Vermouth de Chambéry, imported by Haus Alpenz. He served a version of this with a Cuban-style light rum, and it was pretty spectacular. This never occurred to me to try, and I can’t wait to try it as soon as I get home. Why don’t you try it and let us know what you think?
Posted by chuck on July 22, 2011
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I wish my high school history classes had been a tenth as fun as this one.
Historian-of-booze David Wondrich and guru of all thinks tropical and drinkable Jeff “Beachbum” Berry led us on a survey of the global reach of America’s greatest ambassador to the world at large — the cocktail (and the julep, cobbler, smash, daisy, etc.). It was one of those classes where there’s so much information coming forth that after a few minutes not only can you not even begin to write it all down, it’s a struggle to remember everything. You just have to sit back, let it wash over you, enjoy and laugh and let whatever bits of it stick with you as you practically marinate in history.
There’s a popular myth that’s been promulgated for years that the spread of the American cocktail and the American bar was due to Prohibition. “Horse puckey,” Dave said, only he didn’t, he said something pithier. It had already been a global phenomenon for generations. In fact, American cocktail making and culture began to spread almost immediately after it began to coalesce at home in the mid-1800s, and within fifty years had spread to nearly every corner of the globe. Almost any country that wasn’t too far off the beaten path had an “American Bar,” and sometimes the beaten path extended very far indeed. In the 1890s there was an American bar in Punta Arenas, Patagonia. “That’s practically the end of the earth, and you could get a Manhattan cocktail there. There are parts of Kansas now where I can’t get that,” said Wondrich.
People came to the States from myriad places where their drinking choices were limited by tradition, lack of ingredients, what have you. The light came on in their eyes, though, when a simple glass of sherry (perfectly nice on its own) was transformed by the addition of sugar, citrus, shaved ice and fruit decorations into a luscious sherry cobbler. Writers and poets extolled our drinks’ virtues and sang their praises, and before long everyone wanted bars like this where they lived.
By this point you could get an American-style cocktail almost anywhere in the world, and chances are it’d be pretty damn good. American bartenders hadn’t quite made it around the world in force just yet, though — that’s where Prohibition came in — so you’d often get local variations which weren’t always necessariliy a good thing. Bringing in local traditions and ingredients is fine, but Wondrich said some of these bars were like an insect that had been eaten by a spider, “which sucked all the insides out and left only the shell.”
One difference that snuck into American-style bars which continues here in America is a point that makes Dave bristle. “Look at any old pictures of pre-Prohibition American bars, especially those in the late 1800s. What don’t you see? … Barstools! There were no barstools in proper American bars!” Barstools were an import from Germany, apparently, and Dave finds them the ruination of the spirit of the American bar. “Think about it,” he said. “When you’re standing at the bar, unless you happen to be chatting with the bartender, you’re leaning on it, facing the side or the rear, interacting with the people around you. Nowadays in bars you see only the backs of people on barstools, a phalanx of backs that’s a barrier between you and the bar, and lots of them sit there all night — screw you buddy, I’ve got mine, get yours!” Although I’m as lazy as the next guy, if not more so, and enjoy warming my barstool, I do see his point. And how that I think of it, two of my very favorite bars — The Varnish in Los Angeles and Bar 1886 in Pasadena — have no barstools. But I digress.
After describing the lengths to which our drinks found the corners of the globe (including two fairly notorious bars opened at opposite ends of the Panama Canal by Mayme Kelley and Max Bilgray, who once named a horrid-looking cocktail after famed evangelist Aimee Semple Macpherson after he spotted her in his joint), Jeff Berry took over and we spent a considerable amount of time looking at one particular drinking destination where the American Bar single-handedly sparked a national tourist industry — Havana, Cuba. It was a fairly sleepy town where not a lot of Americans visited, and then the Volstead Act passed, bringing the Noble Experiment of Prohibition to the entire country. And look … there, a mere 90 miles from our shores, was a potential haven of drinking. Plentiful drinking, stacks of liquor and some pretty damn good bartenders, too.
“Have one in Havana!” became the rallying cry for tourists, and one enterprising Spaniard by the name of Jose Abial y Ortega opened what became the number one tourist destination for Americans in Cuba — Sloppy Joe’s Bar.
Many American tourists came to Havana, went straight to Sloppy Joe’s, much to the annoyance of some people who thought the reason to visit a country is to see a country. See Cuba, see more of Havana … for God’s sake, see what else is on the street besides this bar! “Sloppy Joe’s is not Cuba,” snarled one contemporary travel writer. Charles H. Baker Jr, writer for Town & Country, Gourmet and other food and travel magazines as well as the book The Gentleman’s Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask had a different view of drink-oriented tourists who frequented the place: “Sneer all they please as Sloppy Joe’s, the fact still remains that there are as good, and better, and more varied cocktails suitable to our somewhat exacting taste than at any spot in Cuba.” So there.
Jeff even brought along a bottle of Sloppy Joe’s own house label rum (empty, sadly) — they stocked amazing 30-year-old rums which were apparently extraordinary.
There was also a signature cocktail at the bar, the first one of which was served free to every guest:
SLOPPY JOE SPECIAL
2 ounces pineapple juice
1 ounce Cognac
1 ounce ruby Port
Dash of orange curaçao
Dash of grenadine
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.
It’s quite a lovely drink, actually.
In the 1930s Ernest Hemingway, who drank copiously in Cuba, first at Sloppy Joe’s and later at what became his preferred spot, El Floridita, advised his friend Joe Russell, a speakeasy owner, on a new name for his joint, once named the Blind Pig and then the Silver Slipper. “What about Sloppy Joe’s?” he suggested (perhaps as a raised finger to his former regular watering hole, as one speculation went). It was his name, after all. Joe thought it was a good idea, and it stuck — much to the chagrin of the owners of the real Sloppy Joe’s in Havana, who found their fame overtaken by the Key West impostor.
Alas, the original Sloppy Joe’s is no longer with us, although the Cuban government, in the interests of encouraging tourism, is busily restoring the bar to its former glory, or at least a semblance of such. Work is proceeding slowly, and will be finished … one day. The Key West Sloppy Joe’s is still there, though. “If you’re ever in Key West,” went the advice, “do not go to this bar. Worst frakking Daiquiri I’ve ever had.” Only he didn’t say frakking.
Long live the American Bar.
Posted by darcy on July 22, 2011
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When you come to Tales of the Cocktail, you will meet dozens, if not hundreds, of people during the week. Often your mental faculties are impaired by the judicious application of alcohol which makes remembering dozens of names difficult. One of the rules at Tales should be that when groups of people come together you should always introduce yourself and never expect someone to introduce you to the others. There maybe times when a person can remember neither persons name, which could result in an awkward “hey you, meet you” introduction. Possibly funny to some, but maybe not everyone.
Posted by camper on July 22, 2011
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Ice Diamond
There were two seminars on ice this year at Tales of the Cocktail. The first one, reported here, showed the evolution of ice programs in New York bars and what equipment one needs to have an ice program in a bar.
Today’s seminar is about the West Coast style of ice program: buying a big block of ice, cutting it up with a chainsaw or ban saw in advance, and cutting it down to big cubes, and carving it with big knives during service. They say it looks more gangsta that way.
Seminar panelist Andrew Bohrer instructed us not to take any notes – they’ll all be online at his website later today.
Posted by darcy on July 22, 2011
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Tales of the Cocktail always starts off with a bang, and this year was no different. Aside from my sixteen hour travel day, where I was temporarily refused entry to the US and missed three flights, Tales has been great. Continue
Posted by Marleigh Miller on July 21, 2011
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When you know you’re about to enjoy a dinner cooked by chefs Adolfo Garcia and Frank Stitt, what could be more apropos than a flight of aged Panamanian and Puerto Rican rums–unless it’s four cocktails made with those rums?
When those cocktails are made by rum aficionados/nerds/madmen Martin Cate (Smuggler’s Cove, San Francisco) and Wayne Curtis (author of “And a Bottle of Rum”), it doesn’t get much better. Here are some highlights of the cocktail program in pictures:
Martin Cate and Wayne Curtis prepping drinks
Isthmus Cooler–with Abuelo 7-Year
Rum Flight: Trigo Reserva Añeja (PR), Ron de Jeremy, Abuelo 7-Year, Zafra 21-Year (Panama)
Plantain Daiquiri–with Trigo Reserva Añeja
Hedgehog’s Delight–a punch made and served tableside with Ron de Jeremy
Made with a power lele stick:
Aguadulce–with Zafra 21-Year
And Ron Jeremy himself came to the party, enjoying the fabulous dinner and signing bottles:
Posted by doctorbamboo on July 21, 2011
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The Carousel Bar at the Monteleone is a hub (figuratively and literally) of activity during Tales of the Cocktail. During the day it’s both a convenient meeting place and a handy spot for a quick drink to fortify yourself before venturing out to other watering holes. This makes it a very busy place during the day, and finding a spot to sit or even stand takes a little effort and patience.
But after 5, things change a bit. Everything slows down a little and the crowd thins out. Some no doubt head for dinner. Some probably look to take things uptempo and head to a livelier bar. Some take a nap and/or a shower before considering their next move.
This is when I like the Carousel best. The lights seem a little dimmer, the music a little softer, and the drinks a little smoother.
This is also when I’m more aware that the Carousel moves. Not just moves, but turns, slowly revolving and treating me to a gentle magic carpet ride that always brings me back to where I started. It makes me feel slightly sorry for the folks in the chairs around the edge of the room…they’re missing out on the fun.
I also have a theory that a moving bar helps keep things civilized. It’s hard to get rowdy when you’re on a slo-mo merry-go-round. It likely has something to do with being rocked as a baby, but I’m not going to question it too deeply. All I know is that bars come in many shapes and configurations, but I’m coming to the conclusion that round is ideal. And if your round bar also revolves and is decorated in an old-time amusement park motif, then all the better.
The one other thing I like about the Carousel is the array of unobtrusive mirrors placed behind the bar. You can easily ignore them if you like, but I happen to think occasionally seeing your reflection aids in self-reflection. Plus, you can tell if someone is sneaking up behind you. Genius, as far as I’m concerned.
So I think I’ll have one more round. And one more go ‘round.
Posted by camper on July 21, 2011
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In the seminar entitled Shh! It’s A Secret, we learned about Coco-Cola’s history as a “tonic wine,” got some inside as to how Lillet is made, learned a great deal about bittering agents, and we learned about a fungus found in fernet that sucks bitter flavors out of tree bark. Weird.
Read all about it over on Alcademics.
Posted by dawinship on July 21, 2011
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It is odd to kick off a discussion of a critical business tool with the hope that your customers will steal it. But that was precisely the tack taken by Angus Winchester and Sean Finter in their Pro-Session, The Menu, at this year’s Tales. Their contention is that the menu is the most important piece of paper, perhaps the most important implement in a craft cocktail establishment. It is integral to customer satisfaction, to a smooth operation, to marketing, and most importantly to profitability. And it is often the result of great sweat, toil, and inspiration. Finally, many craft cocktail bar menus not only don’t accomplish what they were made for, they actually achieve the opposite.
I’ll get back the “stealing” issue in a bit. Before you worry about your menu growing legs, you need to be sure that it grows profits.
Menu writers all too often create a menu, then tailor operations to suit that menu. This can have negative consequences in many ways, and is a backwards approach to the issue. Angus asserted that “90% of cocktail menus are designed to fail”, because they are not a serious representation of the product the bar actually needs to sell to be successful.
First, many cocktail menus are simply too large. This can be a problem in several ways. It can require a bar to have to stock too many ingredients, many of them perishable. It can take up too much of a customer’s time, time they could be generating revenue. “Are you a bar or a library?” asked Sean. It can be so long that customers will give up and order most drinks from the first page, or they might just order something else entirely, throwing off your expected sales mix. It can also overtax your POS system and prevent you from properly analyzing sales to see not only what is actually selling, but whether you are maintaining good operational efficiency.
But the biggest problem with an overlarge menu is this: While the top 20% of your staff will happily and easily execute a long list to perfection, the bottom 20% will not. There is no worse thing to happen with a menu than for one of your staff to make anything on it wrong. Wait, yes there is, they could tell the customer that they don’t know how to make it. When I mentioned this on Twitter during the session, I got heavy, immediate feedback from all over the country. Agreement was very strong. If this has ever happened to you as a customer, you should already know how important it is to ensure this never happens on your watch as an owner or manager.
Simply put, you must ensure that you don’t get carried away and make your menu for elites, be they elite customers, or elite staff. Only when you craft your offerings to suit the desires of your customers, and the abilities of your staff, can the menu drive profits for you.
The other point stressed most by Angus (and while some might find it debatable. I don’t), is that too many bars are too in love with their own creations, to the point that that is all their menu consists of.
Too many of your rank and file customers will reject a menu filled only with choices they have never seen or heard of, and will go off menu to order. The more guests order from your menu, the faster your operation, the happier the customers, and the more accomplished your staff will become. Both Angus and Sean contended that you could conceivably have a menu that encompasses the only drinks you offer at all, just as with restaurant food menu. I understand the idea here, but as a customer type, I’d likely be fairly hacked off by this approach.
The old classics are still around for a reason. They are really good. Use them as a touch point for
customers to give cred to any originals you do decide to employ.
“There are maybe fifteen drinks created in the last twenty years in the entire world that will still be around in another twenty,” contended Angus. It is damn near impossible to create a menu filled entirely with originals that will hold up for any length of time. Most bars which want to feature only “signature drinks” don’t understand the real meaning of that phrase. You may view it as your favorite creation, something that identifies you to you. But if you sell only three a night, while you move a sea of your take on an old classic, your customers will see that as your signature. If the world beats a path to your Manhattan, it doesn’t matter that is was invented 140 years ago.
The session was packed with far too much good advice to relay it all here, so I’ll finish with several critical elements that they highlighted.
Language is important. No typos. No grammatical errors. (It’s not a blog post) Hire a professional editor at the very least. Sean and Angus likened the quality of writing on your menu to the cleanliness of your bathrooms. If either is, um, untidy it will turn off many of your customers outright, and leave the rest at least subconsciously doubting you and your product.
Still on the language, Use evocative descriptions. Talk about the flavors in a cocktail, rather than dropping a bunch of ingredients on them that many will not be equipped to evaluate. Just because you know the difference between Angostura and Peychaud’s Bitters, doesn’t mean all your customers do.
Finally, you need to choose a balance in how much you write on a menu. Many menus include meaningless factoids, even at the expense of useful information, while others are so terse that they convey no real information at all. Try to create a conversation in some instances, but never a rambling one.
Take lessons from restaurant menus. Every customer need their own, and needs it virtually as they sit down. Your menu does you no good being presented only on request. And if it is made a part of their greeting, the customer will be far more likely to respect what’s on it as what they should choose from.
Consider offering an array of drinks with a wider range of prices. Many customers who experience sticker shock on first entering a craft bar may feel a lot more adventurous about that 11 dollar cocktail after they’ve first had one of the $6.50 highballs next to it on the menu.
Also, you need to go deeper in your analysis as you set your prices. A simple focus on gross profit of X percent over your cost of ingredients will not properly price a drink. An example would be a drink that is served in a more fragile glass. It is going to cost ruinously more over the long haul than another you put in something more sturdy. And a “cheap to make” Moscow Mule will end up losing you a ton if you forget to factor in the theft rate of all those copper mugs you employ in your revivalist frenzy.
And that brings us back to wanting your menus to be stolen. A great menu is a great business card for a bar. If your customers walk off with it, they will have a reason to talk about you, to remember you, and to come back to try something else on that document. Not all menus are cheap enough for you to employ this strategy, of course. Go ahead and keep good tabs on the leather-bound, brass-accented tome you put out there. Conversely, others are produced too simply or cheaply to really become worth stealing, much less become a keepsake. As a bar owner, all these decisions are yours, but the real takeaway from this seminar is that your menu will drive the profitability of your craft bar… in one direction or the other.
Doug Winship
The Pegu Blog
Posted by Marleigh Miller on July 21, 2011
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The view from the Evangeline Rooms at the Royal Sonesta during Thursday’s afternoon tasting:
Ed Hamilton and Jeff “Beachbum” Berry
The alternate Ed Hamilton pouring rum
Matt Lirette pouring mezcal
Eric Seed pouring aperitvos
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